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One thing that is immediately obvious to the visitor in Italy is how the arts are held in very high regard. This is true not just for Florence, widely acknowledged as the birthplace of art as we know it, but is prevalent in all areas that we visited.

One good example of this is in music. As you travel, you hear it everywhere – most often live. Granted, much of it is preformed for tourists and often you’ll hear the same handful of songs, but as a former musician, I can tell you that we never witnessed anything but very talented performers.

Sadly though, just as we arrived in Florence, there was some civil unrest underway on part of the artistic community in response to the shortsightedness of the then-in-charge government (as noted at the time in these stories by CBC and NPR (with audio). In recent years, the situation seems to have improved somewhat though (Guardian / UK).

IMG_8488: From San Gimignano. We seen this woman playing and singing in the town square one afternoon. Later that evening, she was practicing in a nearby building.

IMG_7970: From Lucca. This guy was beautifully playing (what I think was) original music.

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